On April 14th, Step It Up 2007 organized events all over the country to call attention to the problem of global warming and demand an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. The variety of events was great and with the rallies across the country combined, it was the largest global warming demonstration in the history of this country. Even presidential candidate John Edwards, who has a strong plan for energy and stopping global warming spoke at one of the rallies in Florida.
In Washington, DC, participants made a giant human postcard in front of the Capitol Building. We spelled out "80% by 2050," the goal for carbon reduction, in people. Photographers took aerial photos with the help of a crane. People cheered. People sang. People got silly. It was a great day.
The Human Postcard
I may have received one or two other emails about it, but I knew about this event largely because of John Edwards' One Corps. I'm a member of that organization, and they've been really emphasizing action on global warming and for Earth Day. This month, they're asking us to take a 2 part action. The first part was to participate in a local Step It Up 2007 rally on the 14th. For the second part, we will organize our own local actions. Join One Corps to get involved.
The whole thing was a lot of fun. It felt very optimistic, like we're on the cusp of a turning point and people are starting to pay attention to this issue. One of the great personal aspects of it for me, though, was meeting some of the other One Corps members from other DC area chapters.
The event featured some great speakers: Gene Karpinski from the League of Conservation Voters, a spokesperson for Congressman Chris Van Hollen, students involved in the global warming movement, and councilmembers from DC. There was some great music as well. I shot video of most of the event, so here are the links for that:
Step It UP!
This video summarizes the event with excerpts and is the one you should watch, if you can only watch one.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
A little music before the main event:
I'm not very good at estimate, but the Step It Up 2007 organizers have estimated that there were over 1000 people there. This seems accurate, as it took a lot of people to make that human postcard.
Making the human postcard took a long time, but it was quite amusing. It took a lot of organization to get us all arranged perfectly from the photographers perspective. While that was happening, the event organizers led us in cheers like "80% by 2050," with each section shouting a different part of the cheer, or the same thing for "Step It Up." A more complex chant was "Oooh. It's hot in here. There's too much carbon in the atmosphere. Take action! Take action! And get some satisfaction!" Hey, we even did the wave.
Here are a couple of photos of participants being arranged for the human postcard:
You might notice that there aren't too many light colored shirts in those two photos. That's because everyone with white or light colored shirts was kept aside, then placed strategically to make the photo "pop." That included our One Corps contingent, with our white t-shirts. Our shirts got a lot of notice in general. I noticed a lot of people photographing us and heard a lot of talk about John Edwards. (It should be noted that the groups organizing the event have not endorsed him yet, although the League of Conservation Voters has praised his global warming plan.)
I hope that Congress gets the message. I know Gene Karpinski of LCV said that the new Democratic Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi and Senator Boxer, are working on a bill to cut carbon 80% by 2050. My research tells me this is the Boxer/Sanders Bill, S. 309. Disappointingly, of the presidential candidates who are current sitting Senators (Clinton, Obama, and Dodd), only Senator Dodd has co-sponsored that bill. Let's keep up the pressure on our Senators so it passes, and for those who are considering supporting Senator Obama or Senator Clinton for president, ask them why they haven't co-sponsored the Boxer/Sanders bill.
If you want a president who has committed to an 80% carbon reduction by 2050, I suggest you give your support to John Edwards.
One last photo of the event:
UPDATED: I was having trouble viewing the comments with the last video always reloading, so I moved some text below the video. Hopefully this helps.